Courtesy of Carlene Groen, Subject Librarian for School of Science and Technology

Today’s postcard comes to us from Carlene Groen – Subject Librarian for School of Science and Technology at the Nazabayev University Library in Astana, Kazakhstan, and discusses what librarians do during the summer months when students are away from campus. Thank you, Carlene. We like to hear about projects librarians have in store for the summer months and how we spend our days catching up on other work! And we always love the energy the students bring back to campus after their summer vacations:

At the end of semester, students bringing back stacks of books often ask, “What do Librarians do during summer vacation? Do you get to go home to Canada?” The summer for Librarians at NU involves frantically trying to catch up on all the unfinished projects that were started during the academic year and then beginning work on more.

So while students are off on wild summer adventures or in the Library pretending to study (I know that math book is open but so is Facebook), I’m working very hard to get ready for the next semester. My summer to-do list includes: learn LaTeX/BibTex, design new promotional materials, redesign the Library website, invent new information literacy and classroom programs, complete research, do some training, and then find time to buy books.

Sometimes students respond to that list of projects by joking that the “vacation” part of summer vacation must come from not getting interrupted by student questions! The truth is that I want students to come back from summer vacation because the Library is too quiet without them. I can’t wait to hear about student summer internships, that time they hiked a mountain, and that book that didn’t quite get finished.